Zygmunt Bauman Quotes

It is bad to have a servant, but worse to have a master.

If we are not represented, we are slaves.

The world today is divided into the free and the enslaved.

Free men have arms; slaves do not.

He who can be, and therefore is, another's, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature.

The more dependent you are, the more ignorant you must be, and that's how they want you.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.

Every organism, every human being, must conquer or serve.

Human material seems to have one major defect: it does not like to be considered merely as human material. It finds it hard to endure the feeling that it must resign itself to passive acceptance of changes introduced from above.

I'm not going to be intimidated by people or identity politics. I think that's a dead end.

Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.

The cry of the Have-Nots has never been "give us our hearts," but always "get off our backs"; they ask not for love but for breathing space.

By explaining the difference between segregation and separation. Segregation is that which is forced upon an inferior by a superior. Separation is done voluntarily by two equals. If I have children and they live in my house, I care for them, they're dependent upon me. And their dependence upon me puts me in a position to regulate their lives, control their lives, tell them where to go, where they can't go. That's a form of segregation.

I once read somewhere that, in any relationship, the one who cares the least is the one with all the power.

Freedom is essentially a condition of inequality, not equality. It recognizes as a fact of nature the structural differences inherent in man - in temperament, character, and capacity - and it respects those differences. We are not alike and no law can make us so.

I grew up with a very strong sense of what is just and what is not or, to put it this way, I grew up with a keen sense of a division, the reality of a division of perception in people's lives between those who govern and those who govern.

The familiarity of superiors embitters one, because it may not be returned.

If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power.

He foresaw that she would be very much more useful to him in the character of a free woman.

As long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail.

Sometimes, one must become a master to avoid becoming a slave.

Do we always make our freedom out of someone else's bondage?

For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means... the power of some men to make other men what THEY please.

If you want to be a slave in life, then continue going around asking others to do for you. They will oblige, but you will find the price is your choices, your freedom, your life itself. They will do for you, and as a result you will be in bondage to them forever, having given your identity away for a paltry price. Then, and only then, you will be a nobody, a slave, because you yourself and nobody else made it so.

I regard class differences as contrary to justice and, in the last resort, based on force.